Cold and Drafty Rooms

-How does one deal with cold and drafty rooms? Unfortunately, this is a situation that I created myself...twice! Two new houses that I built were designed such that one of the bedrooms was above the front porch. So, even though the floor was insulated, there was no living space underneath - just the cold weather outside! This room was destined to be cold and drafty.

-To make matters worse, there was only one hvac supply, and it wasn't particularly well-placed. This room would be used as a nursery, but I accidentally had the supply placed directly above where the crib was likely to go. So, the cold and drafty room had a blast of air coming right down on the baby. Not good.

-We moved the crib to another wall, but how would I deal with this room being more cold and susceptible to draft than the other upstairs bedrooms? I didn't want to use a space heater, so I was forced to make do with a manipulation of my hvac system.

-I called the hvac company and told them about the room being cold and drafty, and they sent out a serviceman who looked at the ducts. He closed some of the vents in some of the rooms that were warmer, but he warned me about closing too many as it would stress the furnace.

-Since the thermostat was in the hall, I ended up closing all of the doors so that the warmer air would stay in the warm rooms, and the thermostat would "think" that it was colder upstairs than it really was. Thus, more warm air was pumped into the cold and drafty room than would have occurred otherwise. Not an elegant solution.

-The moral of the story: to avoid cold and drafty rooms, talk to your architect and hvac contractor before design and installation to address any rooms that might turn out to be cold and drafty. Pay particular attention to rooms that are above porches.

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